TLU librarians offer in-depth research help.
During library open hours, ask at the main desk for help finding what you need or help setting up an appointment with a librarian.
Click on the Ask a Question tab on the right side of a library web page. It will bring you either to live chat, or to a place where you can leave a message.
830-372-8100 (main desk)
Library directory (list of individual library staff and faculty)
If you get stuck at any point during your research, please come ask a librarian - we love to help students with research!
What words and phrases will you use to search for information? When searching databases, keep the following in mind:
Databases are searchable collections of citations to articles. Different databases provide access to different kinds of information. Here are some good databases for scholarly articles in history:
Provides citations to 450,000 resources on the history of the U.S. and Canada (prehistory-present). (Limited to 6 simultaneous users.)
JSTOR offers researchers the ability to retrieve high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. The journals archived in JSTOR span many disciplines.
Some database offer a checkbox that limits your search to academic, scholarly, or peer-reviewed articles.
If you're in a database that doesn't have this option, you can visit the journal's website. If it is a scholarly or peer-reviewed (also called refereed) journal, it will usually say so.
For example, from the website of the journal Global Media and Communication:
See a title that looks interesting? Click on it to see the full record. The full record can tell you a lot about an article, including:
Congratulations, you've found a relevant article! How can you save the citation for later? How can you get the full text?
Most databases have some buttons along the right-hand sidebar that allow you to print a citation, email it yourself, generate a formatted citation (always check it for accuracy), and more. You can use one of these, or simply copy down the citation information:
When you find a citation in a database, the full text of the article can be in one of three places.
1. It might be right there in the database. You will see a link to the full text as a PDF or HTML document. Easy!
2. The library might have access to the article through another one of our databases or in print. In that case, you will see a blue-and-green "Full Text Through LinkSource" link. Click on it to navigate to the database that contains the article.
3. The TLU Library might not have access to the article. In that case, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan. We will attempt to borrow it for you from another library. There is no charge for this service. Articles take an average is 4 days to arrive, with some arriving quicker and some taking longer. Click the Interlibrary Loan link to fill out the interlibrary loan request form.